Thursday night there was nervousness, there were your typical “are we ready for this?” murmurs and there was a standing ovation come the end. Of course, it should be said that the audience was filled with members of the playwright’s family. This doesn’t make it feel any less awesome though when people are fervently applauding what you’ve done. If this happened in my jobby type job, I would probably be more excited about getting my ass out of bed on a daily basis.
It does also feel awesome when someone, very earnestly, calls you “brilliant”. Yeah, it’s a bit much and not a critique that I agree with, but it still feels pretty darn awesome. It feels somewhat less awesome when you overhear that same person call the snack wraps at the cast party “brilliant”. I mean they were okay… I found later that this particular person had once found Jesus in drum circle.
Which is right where I left him.
Friday night began with a very large theater faux pas. Now I’m not one for theater superstitions necessarily, but I do stay away from them just to hedge my bets a bit. The big one that most people, theater folk and otherwise, know is that you’re not to wish a performer “good luck” before a show. I’ve let this slide in the past mostly because of the rudeness factor of instructing some well meaning friend on the ins and outs of theater lore when they’re trying to be nice and show interest in what you’re doing. Another biggy that folks may not know if they’ve never done any theater is that you’re not to say “Macbeth” while in a theater, it’s super bad luck. In a theater situation, it is to be referred to as “the Scottish play”. Well, the actress who likes to speak a lot about her other shows, and auditions, and acting classes she teaches, said ‘Macbeth” while we were backstage.
I heard her do it, but as I said I’m not big into that sort of nonsense, so I let it slide. But she made such a big deal out of realizing that she had done it that I began to wonder if she had said it just so she could have a tizzy backstage. Her curse on the show was apparently limited to her own performance, and the uncontrollable barking of a dog outside the theater in the middle of Act 2.
It may have also held over for Saturday where we arrived in the space only to find that our sound equipment had been town apart by the late night improv group who had performed there Friday night. Ahh, fringe theater. There was a panic as the stage manager and director tried to rewire the sound board and mixer, but I tried to stay out of the fracas. This was also where I had made the decision to use the word “fracas” more often.
But these are all just the crazed backstage shenanigans, I’m happy with the how the show went. It’s a piece that I feel honored to be a part of, and feel proud for the work I have done with it.
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